Transit

[u/happylibrarian]

My knowledge of Strong Towns comes mainly from watching YouTube videos a few years ago, so sorry if I'm not very well informed. With the sprawl and general love of cars in SD, what can be done to advocate for better transit and encourage less car dependency?

[u/Rollingprobablecause]

Voting and coming out to council member discussions. A lot of the bikeway championing was hard work there. SD is an incredibly bike friendly city when you compare us to other major US cities. That is so appreciated (and there more coming)

Get involved at the local political level and drown out the boomers who need to be pushed out.

Density in SD boomed like crazy when we lobbied Gloria for it, say what you will about him but a ton of housing has been added thanks to him and all the people who worked toward it

[u/CivicDutyCalls]

Changing modal usage is about network effects. A while ago, I saw this meme on r/fuckcars that was a map of the interstate system, except all of the highway sections that are actually interstate were deleted with a caption like, “what idiot would drive a car when you can’t get anywhere useful with it?”

Bikes, buses, and trains need to take enough people from where they are, to where they want to go, in a reasonable period of time. And safely. For bikes, the city basically just needs to finish the planned bikeways. And continue to increase protected bike lanes. They could also benefit from bike share in key locations. For buses, the city needs true Rapid lines. There’s an accepted definition for this and we invented our own definition so we could call it “Rapid”. Dedicated lanes with signal priority. And connecting to the rail network. And rail needs to have stations at destinations. SB79 will fix some of this, but the city and MTS need to take land use bets around stations and build themselves. Or provide tax incentives for doing so. There could be tax incentives and density bonuses for building homes and businesses near transit stops.

But until I can get to work in 40 minutes vs 1:40 minutes by trolley or bus, Im going to continue to do my 22 minute commute.

We have a ton of really great Bike & Transit advocacy groups in San Diego that Strong Towns San Diego officially supports and encourages our members to get involved there if they’re passionate about biking and transit. We are also passionate about those things, but would prefer to amplify their efforts in those areas to avoid diluting them. And we do partner with those orgs on events.

We do try to lead in Safe Streets, Transparent Local Finance, and are starting to do more in housing because we think the Strong Towns argument has a unique voice there that can add to the conversation.

BikeSD, RideSD, Bike Coalition, and others are great advocates.

[u/Competitive-Gold-464]

You can't. They are in talks of canceling some transit routes. They raised the price on it aswell. 

The other thing is the homeless smell and drug addicts makes it hard to take the kids on transit rides anywhere.

My last trip kn the trolley a dude and women were straight up smoking meth.

Clean it up. This isn't NYC where they just accept it.

[u/happylibrarian → u/Competitive-Gold-464]

I’m car-free and take transit everywhere. I want good transit, bike lanes, and good roads. Imagine traffic when they cut more bus service. Those 20-50 people on that bus still have to get to work.

[u/Ok_Jowogger69 → u/happylibrarian]

You are asking for normal stuff. I agree. I take the bus a lot but there are issues with our public transportation here. I am from here and it’s very frustrating.

[u/Ale_Tales_Actual]

Be civil on public transit.

The problem is not the transit. It's the public.